RESEARCH ARTICLE
Dyslipidemia and Chronic Inflammation Markers Are Correlated with Telomere Length Shortening in Cushing’s Syndrome Anna Aulinas1,2*, María-José Ramírez3, María-José Barahona2,4, Elena Valassi1,2, Eugenia Resmini1,2, Eugènia Mato1,5, Alicia Santos1,2, Iris Crespo1,2, Olga Bell1,5, Jordi Surrallés3, Susan M. Webb1,2 1 Sant Pau Biomedical Research Institute, Endocrinology/Medicine Departments, Hospital de Sant Pau, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 2 Center for Biomedical Network Research on Rare Diseases (CIBERER Unit 747), ISCIII, Barcelona, Spain, 3 Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Department of Genetics and Microbiology and Center for Biomedical Network Research on Rare Diseases (CIBERER Unit 745), ISCIII, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain, 4 Hospital Universitari Mutua Terrassa, Endocrinology Department, Terrassa, Barcelona, Spain, 5 Center for Biomedical Network Research on Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN), ISCIII, Barcelona, Spain *
[email protected] OPEN ACCESS Citation: Aulinas A, Ramírez M-J, Barahona M-J, Valassi E, Resmini E, Mato E, et al. (2015) Dyslipidemia and Chronic Inflammation Markers Are Correlated with Telomere Length Shortening in Cushing’s Syndrome. PLoS ONE 10(3): e0120185. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0120185 Academic Editor: Onno C Meijer, Leiden University Medical Centre, NETHERLANDS Received: July 7, 2014
Abstract Introduction Cushing’s syndrome (CS) increases cardiovascular risk (CVR) and adipocytokine imbalance, associated with an increased inflammatory state. Telomere length (TL) shortening is a novel CVR marker, associated with inflammation biomarkers. We hypothesized that inflammatory state and higher CVR in CS might be related to TL shortening, as observed in premature aging.
Accepted: January 30, 2015 Published: March 23, 2015 Copyright: © 2015 Aulinas et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Funding: This work was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Health, ISCIII, PI 11/00001 and PI 08/0302 and by two Young Investigator Awards of Fundación de la Sociedad Española de Endocrinología y Nutrición (FSEEN) and of the European Society of Endocrinology (ESE) to AA. JS's laboratory is funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya (SGR0489-2009) and the ICREA-Academia award. SMW's group is funded by the Generalitat de Catalunya (SGR 355-2014). CIBERER is an initiative
Aim To evaluate relationships between TL, CVR and inflammation markers in CS.
Methods In a cross-sectional study, 77 patients with CS (14 males, 59 pituitary-, 17 adrenal- and 1 ectopic-origin; 21 active disease) and 77 age-, gender-, smoking-matched controls were included. Total white blood cell TL was measured by TRF-Southern technique. Clinical data and blood samples were collected (lipids, adrenal function, glucose). Adiponectin, interleukin-6 (IL6) and C-reactive protein (CRP) were available in a subgroup of patients (n=32). Correlations between TL and clinical features were examined and multiple linear regression analysis was performed to investigate potential predictors of TL.
Results Dyslipidemic CS had shorter TL than non-dyslipidemic subjects (7328±1274 vs 7957±1137 bp, p
